


six thousand, one hundred and ninety-two miles

by snowdrops



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Historical References, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, mentions of golem dissection, pre-Ark arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 14:09:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6808363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdrops/pseuds/snowdrops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavi gives Kanda a call when they are both away on their own missions.</p><p>Set during the China arc, before Edo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	six thousand, one hundred and ninety-two miles

They are in China (they being the panda, Lenalee, Allen and himself), and it’s yet another false lead; Lavi swears the General has planted informants everywhere and always manages to take off before they can catch up to him, much to everyone’s frustration. Tensions are running high in their small group: The panda’s patience is running thin (he is clearly done with the General’s game of hide-and-seek at this point), and Allen and Lenalee have just had another quarrel over God-knows-what. He doesn’t really want to know. He’s more than a little thankful when the old man decides to pull rank at the village inn, and use the Rose Cross to get them each a room of their own, both Bookmen included. The old man says he needs time away from Lavi’s noise, so who is he to complain?

It’s nearing 10pm when he finishes with his records for the day. He’s not really tired yet, but there’s nothing left for him to do – he’s not about to spend his rare day free of the panda with his nose buried in a book, however appealing that would sound on any other day. He’s contemplating taking apart his golem and figuring out how it works, because that’s one of the unsolved mysteries that he hasn’t had a chance to crack in the two and a half years that he’s been at the Order, when inspiration strikes. A large smile breaks out over Lavi’s face, a bit too genuine for his comfort, but it doesn’t stop him from putting the call across.

There’s silence in the room except for the dialing tone coming from the golem. It rings three times, its rhythm steady and melody familiar, and then it cuts when the other party picks up.

“Speaking,” comes the harsh reply. Ah, always so brutal, Lavi smirks to himself.

“Yuu!” he says instead, intentionally pitching his voice at the precise level and tone that he knows will piss Yuu off instantly and make the vein above his right eyebrow twitch. There is a groan from the swordsman.

“What is it, rabbit?” he’s dropped the gruffness from the voice, and he sounds unusually tired. There’s not much fight in his voice, and no additional aggression beyond the hostility that is ever present when he talks.

Lavi turns his voice back to normal speaking mode. He’s slightly concerned; it isn’t like Yuu to sound this – he fumbles for the word – defeated. “Are you okay?”

There’s some muted muttering on the other end of the line, before Yuu’s voice comes back a few seconds later, louder and clearer. There’s a sound of a whistle blowing, so he guesses that the other is travelling.

“No, I’m not,” comes the blunt admission, still sounding as uncharacteristically empty. “What do you want?”

“I just felt like calling you since I’m free from Gramps’ clutches for the day,” Lavi says, frowning slightly. Yuu doesn’t just admit to not being alright – he doesn’t think he’s ever heard Yuu say so of his own volition. “What happened?”

There’s a muffled curse and Yuu’s very soft, “Daisya’s dead. We found him nailed to a streetlamp after we split up to do individual patrols.”

Lavi can’t help the lurch of his stomach. He didn’t know Daisya well – heck, he intentionally made sure to not get too close to anyone else after he realized that Yuu and Lenalee had gotten too far under his skin, way beyond what was wise – but he knows that Yuu considered the other a brother, if not a brother-in-arms. He knows that Daisya, Marie and General Tiedoll have been the only semblance of a family that Yuu has ever had since his ‘birth’, the only constants in a crazy world like the one they live in. And he knows that no matter how much Yuu denies it, he actually cares for them. Losing Daisya – Lavi imagines it’s like losing the old panda.

“I’m sorry, Yuu.”

 There’s a grunt from Yuu. “For what? It wasn’t your fault.”

Lavi changes the subject when he can, tells Yuu about all the inane and mundane incidents that have been happening since they reached China. He tells Yuu about the grand buildings that are scattered around Peitian Village where they’re currently located, the cobblestoned street that stretches for a kilometer across the village, the number of times they’ve been so close to seeing General Cross’ red hair but never succeeding, the _bao_ that they eat almost every day for breakfast.

Yuu’s probably glad for the distraction, because he complains about the cold weather in Spain, the language barrier – “You don’t know how lucky you are that Lenalee and Bookman are with you in China.” “Yuu, do you not realize I speak Chinese too?” – and most of all, how sick he is of eating pasta.

When the conversation quiets, Yuu tells him that he’s on a train travelling from Barcelona towards Paris, which is why he hasn’t hung up yet. Lavi thinks he hears some soft laughter from the background that may or may not belong to General Tiedoll, but he doesn’t get a chance to ask because Kanda says something along the lines of _shut up_ to whoever it is and the laughing stops.

The moon is already high up in the sky when Lavi realizes how late it is. They have a long journey on foot again tomorrow, and he’s told Yuu as much.

“Stay alive, Yuu,” he says in way of parting. In the back of his mind he notes that it’s been almost five months since he’s seen the other, because they’ve been dispatched on missions at alternate times for just as long. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Stop calling me that,” Yuu snaps, but there is no heat in his voice. “I’m not that easy to kill.”

They hang up, and Lavi leans back against the headboard of his bed. He hates to admit it, but he really hopes they meet up again soon.    

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with pen and paper during my class orz
> 
> I tried to write 'not-as-hostile' Kanda here, and I don't know if I managed to pull it off. This fic was born simply from the idea that Lavi and Kanda probably keep in touch on occasion even when they're not in the same place (actually this is canon - Lavi called Allen beansprout saying Kanda did it first, but as far as we know Lavi hadn't seen Kanda in quite a while, since pre-series until they met in Edo). And given the nature of their friendship, I wouldn't put it past Lavi to make a call halfway around the world just to irritate Kanda once in a while. 
> 
> **References & Additional Notes: **
> 
> Peitian Village is an actual village in Liancheng County, Fujian Province, China, that carries with it 800 years of history.
> 
> http://www.tour-beijing.com/blog/fujian-travel/longyan-travel/peitian-village-ancient-peitian-village-in-fujian  
> http://www.chinahighlights.com/yongding/attraction/peitian-ancient-buildings.htm
> 
> In the present day, there is no more direct train from Barcelona, Spain to Paris, France, but in the past there was and that is what I am working with for this story. 
> 
> China is 6 hours ahead of Spain, so while it is midnight for Lavi, it's only sunset for Kanda.   
> 6192 miles is the distance between Liancheng County and Barcelona.


End file.
